Hey, do you use grey or gray? The more I look at them, the more they both look weird.
How do you become a Sir James Matthew Barrie, feeling sore about life and yet finding the magic everywhere? One way I find the magic in life is to listen to Enya Radio on Pandora as I read or get ready in the morning or, really, while doing anything. It's like having a soundtrack for the epic-ness of your life.
But when you are struggling with life's trials, how do you feel the spark of a quest to be defeated?
Do you ever feel this way or am I crazy?
I suppose the way to feel the way I just described is to do what I just described. But obviously, there's the concern that you are ridiculous for seeing your trip home as a quest. And obviously, fairies don't need you to build them a fake home in a tree stump.
But maybe it's in acting like there's more to life than fits in a science textbook, even if we allow ourselves to pretend myths are real sometimes, maybe it's the ceremony of pretending things that aren't true that remind us that we forget to believe in things that are true –
Like good and evil.
Right and wrong.
True love and honor and cowardice.
A right time and place, and a wrong time and place.
Chance, luck, fortune, providence.
Prayer. Hope.
This lack of belief in things we cannot see and cannot fully comprehend allows us to do what is most convenient for the tricky combination of our comfort and personal morality. It transforms us into a mere common man. Convenience has to be laid to rest if we're to be heroes. Our comfort has to satisfy itself with – and would probably prefer – the back burner if we're ever to rise to epic proportions.
I'm about to set out on a 10 hour drive to go to a scary place with unkind people. In other words, I'm going home. But I don't have to see it as going home to put up with my mother – no hope of salvation. I can see it as a quest, a step in my journey for greatness.
I struggle to rise early in the morning and stay up late to read or do homework. I struggle to perform the concepts my professors try to explain. But it doesn't have to be drudgery. It's hard sometimes but the end goal is noble.
I don't know if that makes any sense. I think if I had a clearer answer to my own question, it'd make more sense. But that's probably part of what authors and philosophers have meant when they defended fairytales. It's not that fairytales try to convince us that a dragon might carry you off – it's that fairytales remind you that we all have dragons in our life that we have to face, and they can be defeated but we have to be noble.
Is that what it means to believe in yourself?
Do you guys ever struggle with this balance? What is your solution?